[GCFL-discuss] Adam Smith on profits

[Discussion of the Good, Clean Funnies List]

It is difficult to find much purpose in blogs associated with news
columns. Nobody who read them all could ever find time to act on any high
purpose to be found there. Its mostly a way for the chattering classes to
feel good about hanging their two cents worth out in public. But, this
one caught my eye, mostly because of the insights into the often mis-used
analysis of Adam Smith. Following the link is an abridged version of the
best parts.

Siarlys

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/09/23/opinion/23brooks
.html?permid=476#comment476

Going into debt between meager paychecks while prices keep going up. The
people who brought you the ARM, Payday Loans, Car Title loans and the
Lottery, now present, let me think, the sharecropper economy. More
efficient and socially acceptable than slavery and all run for your
benefit. Just bring your cotton to the gin and we'll give you a good
price and sell you your own seeds because it was our DNA after all.

I suggest we all take a little time and read Adam Smith and what he had
to say about the employer class when left to set regulations for
themselves:

"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which come from
this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and
ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully
examined..." "It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never
exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest
to deceive and even to oppress the public..." (250)

And then the part about what happen when the rate of profit is too high.

"...the rate of profit does not like rent and wages, rise with
prosperity, and fall with declension, of the society. On the contrary, it
is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always
highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin." (249-50) The
Wealth of Nations 1776,Modern Library Edition, 1937)
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